Bali,
balibound,
balibound2k15,
cestlavie,
clark quay,
indonesia,
orchard road,
Singapore,
skybar,
travel,
wanderlust,
writerlife
Bali Bound: Day 3
Day 3: August 23
Singapore-Bali
How long has it been this time? I allow my eyes to peek open and check the clock. 6am (6pn yesterday back home) - we've been here for 4 hours, but I'm somehow wide awake.
An astonishing cityscape greets me at when I finally give up and pull the curtains open in Singapore. This is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen - it is clean, the archetecture is astonishing, and the people are so friendly.
We have breakfast at the hotel, which is a mix of traditional western breakfasts (eggs, waffles, yogurt) and local flavors (fried rice, dumplings, stir fry), then head off to explore. We intentionally don't have a ton planned for this first day since we have to be back at the hotel, packed and checked out, by 4pm to make our 6:00 flight to Bali.
We walk to Orchard Road, which is a high-end shopping strip full of designer storefronts and malls. It's not your typical shopping plaza, though. The sidewalks are wide enough to be roads and are dotted with artwork and facinating buildings.
Within minutes, most people are melting into tiny puddles, drip by drip, in the oppressive head. I look around as beads of sweat dot everyone's foreheads, but I am immune to the natural sauna.
We don't buy anything (because 1. most of these stores are in New York and 2. it's way more interesting to walk through the scenes in awe than actually look at any merchandise), so once we get pretty well down Orchard Road, we decide that we want to take a taxi to Clark Quay ("key") to keep walking around and to have lunch.
Clark Quay is absolutely beautiful. It is filled with colorful buildings along the marina
and artwork along the underpasses and sidewalks
We make sure to get some selfies in, too, since that's an important part of the cultural experience.
Insider tip about cabs in Singapore: I don't get them. Since there are 5 of us we always had to split into two cabs, and their prices were never the same. The only consistent pattern that I could discern was that whoever was in the 2-person cab always paid more than those in the 3-person cab, even the time when the 2-person took about half the time to get to our destination. They were all metered, so who knows?
We went down to the lobby of the Sky Bar entrance area, and found out that there are two levels: the observation desk, which you pay to go up to, or C'est La Vie, a restaurant/bar on the level above the observation deck, for which there is no cover charge. So, rather than simply going up and walking around, we decided to go to C'est La Vie for drinks and small appetizers. Good choice. We could see everything, plus there was alcohol and seats.
I don't know what the vast majority of these buildings are, but maybe I'll find out in a few days when we come back again before finally heading home.
We taxied back to the hotel to finish packing and get on yet another plane (only 2.5 hours this time). We landed at 8:50pm local time. Despite being pretty tired, we had just enough time to jump into the pool before calling it a night for the first time in Bali...
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